Not being ugly, You contact these folks or others so you don't kill yourself or others. Just a question, is you life worth more than a $1000.00? Stutzman's Wheel Shop LTD 33656 CR 12 Baltic, OH 43804 330-897-1391, ext 1 Or

I'm with John. I shim up loose spokes by knocking them out and burning them in a campfire. Then, I bead blast and prime the hubs and felloes to get them ready for Noah Stutzman to work his magic with new spokes that should outlast me.

Rare have been the times when my modern car needed a repair that cost me less than $600. _That same amount of money would completely re-wood three out of four of your Model T Ford's wheels. _And the job will have been done by a man who really knows what he's doing and insists on doing the job as well as it can be accomplished. _Noah Stutzman's reputation is sterling.

It just doesn't make sense to butchie-boo around with temporary, band-aids like spoke shims or injectable resin when you can get what amounts to a brand new wheel—and peace of mind—so cheaply. _Two bills to completely rebuild a wheel is awfully inexpensive.

Spokes become loose because they have either shrunk with age, or are soft due to dry rot. Either way, shimming is just a temporary and very dangerous fix that may tighten the spokes up, but the problem of dried out or rotten and weak spokes still remains. Please re-spoke your wheel before the inevitable failure occurs, destroying your model T and killing you or others on the road. Thank you. Jim Patrick

I have found that as long as the spokes are solid it is a viable repair. The spokes in metal felly's wear at the point the wood makes contact, proper shims and done correctly can last many thousands of miles. As far as shims, sometimes they can be found at swap meets or e bay at times. Most likely you will have to make your own the thickness you need. If you can afford to respoke your wheels then by all means do so. I have not always been able to afford this so I chose to shim. If I thought this was unsafe I would not have done so, just my own worthless opinion, KGB

I had the same problem you did in 2011. Spokes on the front right wheel of my '26 coupe started clicking and upon closer inspection, I discovered a fine brown powder on the rim. I got a set of plans for John Regan's spoke press and bought a set of hickory spokes from Snyder's and I did it myself. The wheel still runs nice and true. It is not difficult to do once you get started. Here is the thread for when I did mine. Perhaps if you decide to do yours use can learn from my mistakes. Jim Patrick

Dan: we talked about shimming spokes ...it WAS a routine repair in the old days and i have seen wheels with the shims still inplace ...probably if this was 1930 and you had to decide on shimming the spokes or NOT PAYING THE MORTGAGE and LOOSING THE FARM , you would shim the spokes ...not the best solution and temporay at best BUT it has been done before ...still an optimist gene french

At the risk of being booed off the forum it is possible to add shims. A couple of years ago, my friend Lee called that someone had just driven their T from Kansas to near his home in Chula Vista and one rear wheel was "clicking".. I went down, we pulled the wheel and brought the wheel to the barn. I numbered the spokes and then pulled the wheel apart. I glued an oak veneer shim to one side of every even numbered spoke. After the glue on the six shims had dried, I cleaned up each shim and reassembled the wheel with my home made press. A few hours later it was returned to the owner and next day he set back off to Kansas. I saw him on the recent New Mexico tour and it is still running just fine. JMHO

Since I am new to this I figure this winter I'll respoke my front wheels, rears look really good, the felloes are heavily rusted on the front so they may need replaced also. I'll be making a trip to Colorado and I'll look up Dave Huson in Berthoud next month.